A Field Guide to Deception (23 page)

“Why are you mad? I can't be friends with a woman, is that what you're telling me?”

“Friends? Like you and I are friends?”

“Yes. Like that.”

“Perfect. No potential for messy drama there.”

“You're acting like a jealous girlfriend, Bailey.”

“You're acting like an arch brat, Liv.”

“Jesus, I'm so tired of women I could scream.”

Claire murmured when Liv climbed into bed, stretched her arm out, pulled Liv into her, curled around her, and promptly fell back asleep. Liv stared at the ceiling fan, craved a cigarette, and imagined a belly
shifting, a head protruding through skin. She could almost feel the shift beneath her palm.

She never got tired of this story. Running up five flights of stairs on Christmas Eve, desire as clear as her pulse, a chocolate bar in her coat pocket, and she's knocking on the door, rubbing her hands together, anxious for them to be warm.

There was a part of the story that she always edited, even in her own recollection. The moment where she offered to take care of them, the girl and her child, and the moment after that, the last moment, where the girl had looked at her with pity, and shaken her head.

Twenty-four

Accountancy

Bailey and Claire waited in the foyer at the CPA's office. Butterscotch candy in the dish by the receptionist,
Outside
and
Backpacker
magazine on the coffee table that fronted the yellow couch, scenic photographs on the walls, a plain, well-lit room.

They'd worn skirts, makeup, and appealing blouses. Inexplicably formal, as though they'd both come to interview for a job. Claire felt ridiculous waiting like this, and wished she'd had Patrick come by the café, where at least they could be working.

“You're nervous,” Bailey remarked. “Me too. Like I'm about to take an exam.”

“I'm hungry.”

“Maybe we should all go to lunch, have a cocktail.”

“Since when are you wearing glasses?”

“I'm out of contact solution.”

“You look good in them.” Smarter, Claire meant.

An energetic, sculpted man bounded into the room and hugged Claire. His hair deliberately unkempt, his cologne subtle and spicy, his suit impeccable, he extended his right hand to Bailey, while his left stayed wrapped around Claire's shoulders, “And you must be Bailey.”

Bailey shook his hand, nodded.

“Great. Let's grab some lunch. Thai cool with you two? We're expensing it, of course: client meeting.” He shuttled them out the door, sunglasses on, his suit jacket and no coat, his shoes Italian leather, gorgeous.

Patrick talked the three blocks to Thai on First—a boating trip in August—and after they'd chosen a booth, and been handed menus, and water glasses—a climbing trip to Colorado—and then he ordered a round of beer and iced coffee, and told them about biking to Portland.

After they ordered food, he paused to look at them. “This is exciting. I'm excited to be working with the two of you.” He raised his glass. “To the café's continued success.” They raised their glasses as well, Bailey's head tipped forward to smother her smile.

Claire put her hand on Patrick's sleeve before he could say another word. “Patrick, we only have forty minutes.”

“Right. Right.” Patrick looked at Bailey, and said, “I've read the reviews of the café. I've looked at the preliminary financials, and I've heard the buzz around town. You're doing extremely well, and I can help you do better. I can look at your business from a numbers perspective—dispassionate, with a focus on long-term profitability. I can help you use your profit to bolster the business. I'll watch your expenses and draws and contributions—I'll keep as much of your money working for you as is legal. I'll handle your taxes, and your investments. Claire is doing a bang-up job on the bookkeeping. You really just need me for quarterlies and year-end, and as a purely financial perspective.”

Their plates arrived: a tureen of sour soup; spinach chicken with a peanut sauce; spring rolls; red curry with vegetables; a large pot of rice. Claire ate, while Patrick fielded Bailey's questions. Patrick was a goofball. He talked too much and too excitedly. As a child, he'd never learned to hide his ardor. It was disarming and enticing and annoying, and it was working on Bailey. Claire felt herself beyond enticement anymore. The café was supposed to make everything better. That had been the plan. Not a distraction—the work, the investment—but a livelihood, a life. What had happened to her life?

She felt cheated now. She felt cheated of the life she was supposed to have. The field guides, and her aunt, and the writing, and the peace of their house with Simon. Something wild, something foreign welled inside her. It felt like bitterness. And fear. In the mornings, coming
into the kitchen, Simon and Liv at the table with their cereal bowls, Claire knew herself to be an interruption—a Russian sentence in a Portuguese story. She'd stepped outside her life, and could only orbit now like a moon.

“Thanks,” Bailey said, in the car on the drive back to the café, “for setting that up. I feel so encouraged about the whole situation. Patrick's fantastic. He's like a little kid—all ideas and energy. He talks more than I do. And you just trust him. You're with him like five minutes, and you just know he's going to take care of everything. It's fantastic, really.”

“Good. I'm glad you approve.”

“I do. I approve. He's fixated on you. You're aware of that, right?”

“Yes, I'm aware of that. It's not a problem.”

“Of course not. He knows about Liv?”

“He knows.”

“Well,” Bailey said. Her feet on the dash, her skirt high on her thighs, her legs bare. “This chick told me recently that knowledge can fix anything.”

Claire read to Simon for an hour. He kept hopping up to grab another book, or asking for the same one to be read again. And then he wanted more kisses, and more kisses before he finally let her turn off the light, and shut the door. He'd clung to her, his arm wrapped around her hand. He hadn't done that in months, and she felt worn down now, depleted. She ran a bath, sat on the edge of the tub, her hand dipping occasionally into the water. Could she be tepid? Is that what had happened? She'd become tepid.

She stripped and climbed into the bath. The water a breath away from painful, red patches spread up her skin. She rolled onto her side, and saw Liv in the doorway.

“Hey,” Liv said.

“Hey.”

She stayed in the doorway. Claire wanted to call out—she wanted
back into her life, even if it required a collision.

“How was your day?” Liv asked.

“Bailey and Patrick met, and it went well. Good numbers today, especially lunch.”

“I'm sorry I missed story time.”

“We had a marathon session. How's the attic?”

“Coming along. The electrical is finally done.”

Liv stepped forward, crossed her arms, and tugged her shirt over her head. Claire held her breath, loved this moment of exposure, the drawn torso. Liv yanked off the rest of her clothes, and climbed into the bath. Claire had shifted onto her back, and welcomed the weight of Liv's body, the tremor of the water, the inflexibility of the tub behind her. Crushed.

“Liv,” she said. The word jagged in her mouth, torn from someplace. “Liv.” And it burned—the water, the girl, the stress of re-entry—it burned and Claire wanted to fight, to tense against this vulnerability. Tears slipped down her face and into the bath, her foot kicked against the faucet, she strained against Liv and into her. Her orgasm hurt her, and left her laughing.

“Carry me to bed,” Claire said. “Tuck me in. I want to sleep like a child.”

And she did. She slept while Liv watched her. She slept when Liv climbed from bed. She slept while Liv paced and smoked, huddled into her jacket beneath the quarter moon.

Twenty-five

Daycare and other bureaucracies

Claire phoned Liv on her march back to the car, and several times while driving to the café, and from the parking lot. And as she walked into the kitchen, she gave up on the notion of a conversation, and left a message, her voice tight with fury.

At the oven, Bailey looked at Simon, his hand in his mother's, his face turned up to watch her as she closed the phone, clenched it in her fist, and growled. A terrible, rumbling growl, from which Simon looked away. He focused on Bailey, his eyes dilated.

“Come over here,” Bailey said. “Tell me what's happened.”

Claire stood a moment, her body moving slightly as though it were considering. She stooped down to pick Simon up, then walked over to Bailey's station.

“When I got to daycare, there was a note in his cubby that they needed to talk to me right away about Simon's socialization.”

“He's a puppy now?”

“He's got a new teacher; she's been there three weeks and she's decided that Simon's autistic. She wanted me to take him to a specialist to figure out where he is on the spectrum.”

“What?”

“She said he only speaks in a whisper, and refuses to play with the other kids, and never wants to do crafts. She said he's only interested in trains, and never uses more than three words at any given time.”

“This is the same kid that's been reading for months?”

“The very same.”

“And this teacher has some sort of accreditation to make this diagnosis?”

“She has a special ed background. That's how they said it. A special ed background. I don't even know what the fuck that means.”

“Claire, you know Simon's not autistic. He's exceptional. He's amazing. He just hates those other kids, and this woman bores him. He's unhappy at daycare. That's the extent of this.”

“Why won't Liv answer her phone?”

Bailey walked over and took Simon from Claire. “Go outside, and take a walk. Simon will be fine here with me. Go take a walk, and don't come back until you're calm. I don't care how long that takes. Simon and I will be here baking. Simon, will you help me bake?”

“Oh yes,” he said. And he hurried to the cupboard for his apron.

Claire walked south on Grand, the wind a furious press, the cars a torrent until Manito Park, where they crawled at 20 miles per hour for the three blocks of the park. Dog walkers and runners, a fat kid waiting for the bus. She tried Liv's cell again. Why didn't she notice that he hated daycare so much he'd completely closed down? How had she left her kid in a climate like that?

She walked up the hill, past the beautiful homes and the dental offices and the looming maple trees. She walked past the piled leaves, the air smelled of wood fires.